Tips: Writing

[italiceyeball]

Start. Otherwise, go wash dishes or something.
Full Commitment. If you're writing for five minutes, those five minutes need to be devoted. An intriguing ten minute session is worth more than an hour pecking despondently at the keys. Be fascinated with whatever you're writing. Find a way, or choose something else.
Make sense. Your ideas should be intelligible to someone. Even if that someone is theoretical, it's enough to know that you understand how your writing will be interpreted by various people and types of people. This doesn't mean that your overcritical urges are justified, which brings us to...
You are not a reliable critic of your own work. Making changes to your writing needs to be done by tip #2. If you are not in that state of fascination, don't edit. Go wash the dishes or whatever.

Comments

[fredherman]

...but what repeatedly happens is that Minutes One through Ten are fascinating, after which Minute Eleven Plus suddenly dissipates the energy.

[italiceyeball]

Yes. Obstacles are ubiquitous.

There's nothing wrong with writing well for ten minutes! Sounds excellent.

[fredherman]

Yes, but it results in a lifetime of excellent,unrelated first paragraphs.

[italiceyeball]

I don't believe it! Too morbid.

[fredherman]

Is morbid, yes; as is gradual realization that one really doesn't have much to write after all, at least not enough to stick with. (Finished *one* graphic novel script, which has not sold. All else seems to fizzle after maybe a day or two of enthusiasm, or else be stillborn from the start in a pool of ennui. And my, I'd best stop being so confessional/Toreador.)

[italiceyeball]

I've never sold anything and don't know if the commercial model will ever work for me. I've never written anything successfully. I am essentially driven by sublime frustration: occasionally lovely, sometimes stylish, and never finished.

Wrote and continue to think about severely limited pieces. A one word prompt for a one hundred word response. Success is dependent on hitting that word count, not one more or less. Of course, you also want it to be not atrocious, but the point is to redefine the success associated with length.

[fredherman]

Sublime frustration - that's an excellent way to put it.